Category: Creative Writing

The Value of My Memories

Posted on by Faith

I struggle to get words to come forward that make sense to someone other than me. I struggle to verify memories. This is now a life of he said – she said. My brain almost doesn’t care as it has come so far down the stretch, towards the end.

When I was younger I wanted to drag people by the heels in public and force open confessions. I wanted everyone to know I. was. hurt. I wanted even more for someone to care about the hurt. Does my life matter?

What I remember the most is fear, abject fear. What I felt the most was cold but here we are half a century later in, “he said she said” and I ask myself why I ever said anything at all?

Hope. I was looking for hope. I remember.

It’s Just a Foot

Posted on by Faith

I owe you an apology. Please, wake up, I owe you an apology. I said it was just a foot and not worth dying over because I didn’t understand. Tears swell in my eyes. My lips begin to trimble as I stand before headstone after headstone. Wake up! every Granny, aunt, uncle with a leg, arm, hand or foot they let get too bad until it was too late and tell them I was wrong. It’s not just a foot is it? No. Not when it happens to you. Instantly you understand your humanity.

The wind hesitates. I pretend to breathe. I owe you an apology.

I didn’t know the brain would need to rewire. I didn’t know the fear you’d live in of another amputation, or of physical therapy.

“She’s your nurse” doesn’t contain the impact a stranger has of touching every inch of your body at all times, of dangling fingernails over all your belongings leaving nothing untouched, feeding garbage food you can barely taste because life itself is stale.

Sweetheart wake up. Wake up. I touch another headstone. I didn’t know it would be this hard.

For the living

I’m colder than I’ve ever been. I’ve felt more pain and fear in the last 7 years than the previous years of life. Only 2% of the time do I think to myself, I should have died. Most of the time I’m happy I made it but I’m in the crowd that has to say I was wrong to pass judgment on people who couldn’t see the amputation through. It’s not just a foot. I was young. I didn’t know what I was saying. Who am I to say who does or doesn’t have the strength to endure an amputation?

Faith Magdalene

Sometimes I Feel Like A Freak

Posted on by Faith

This is about the stress and pressure from people telling me what I should be doing and me having a hard time finishing projects. Slowly but surely they are being completed, this one too very, very soon. –

Sometimes I feel like a freak but I try to hide it.

I try to blend in.

Say the right things, the right way.

I want to hold my face in the expression allowing emotions of the moment to show, balancing them on my brow and tongue like a real live woman.

I’m not normal. I’m not and the effort it takes to be, exhausts my tired spirit.

Sometimes I feel lost.

I’m lost

as ink scratches on

9×12 pads

roads and hills,

lands of dramatic color and wonder.

With each stroke of the pen to paper you hear the symphony of my madness.

There’s stress in the ink, acrylic and experimental designs. Stress to do it your way.

Change. Spotlight. Museum. Gallery. Gala. Teach. Speak, Lead!

Don’t waste your voice, your voice, your voice, your voice.

The art stops. The freak is seen clearer. And everyone finally goes home.

Faith Magdalene

The Master of My Ghosts

Posted on by Faith

There’s an old, half blind dog lying on the porch. That old dog is me.
.

His daytime howl is common, almost a fixture in his home. He growls at shadows and charges falling, dry leaves as though they were a personal attack on himself and the dilapidated house he protects.

He can hardly see. He doesn’t hear clearly or process like others. This old dog with half an ear and legs born lame, feels so far removed from a living thing that even the softest touch can in an instant turn from intimacy to biting distrust.

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